Published 16 January 2023 in News
SAFFCA
Mohammed Arrhioui Artist in Residence at SAFFCA
Southern African Foundation For Contemporary Art (SAFFCA)
Abbaye de la Cambre 21, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium
January - March 2023
Our Aims
Give Art exposure through love and passion.
Support, nurture, and promote the Visual Art and Artists of the African and European continents.
Participate in linking Local to Global.
Participate in establishing a new and sustainable architecture in the relations between the two continents through multicultural conversations focusing on art making.
About SAFFCA
SAFFCA was created in South Africa in 2015. The first artists to come to Europe for their SAFFCA Residency were Themba Khumalo and Nelson Makamo in 2016. Many followed them.
SAFFCA was able during its presence in France to be invited to exhibit some of its collection at the opening of MECA in Bordeaux invited by the FRAC Aquitaine and at the Espace François Mitterrand, invited by the Agence Culturelle de la Dordogne.
Since 2017, European artists have been coming to South Africa for a SAFFCA Residency at August House in Johannesburg in partnership first with the Project Space of late Benon Lutaaya before the META Foundation, and in Knysna at Entabeni Farm in Partnership with Axon and Hudson Manor.
In 2020, with the Covid Pandemic we were forced to interrupt our residency program on both continents. We took the opportunity of this gap in our program to close our space in Saint Emilion and to relocate the European side of our initiatives in Brussels, the European capital.
In March 2021, we created SAFFCA.EU as an ‘Association Sans But Lucratif’ (ASBL). In may 2021 we signed a partnership with ENSAV LA CAMBRE, the renowned art school in Brussels with approximately 750 students. Most students are at LA CAMBRE for 5 years. In August 2021 we were able to get our premises at the Abbey of la Cambre where the entire art school is presently being relocated.
The Abbey of la Cambre
At the end of 2021, Lindo Zwane was invited to SAFFCA.EU in Brussels to work in residency alongside Clement Garnung from France. Lindo did unfortunately not receive his visa and Clement stayed in residency at the Abbey for the months of October and November 2021.
At the beginning of 2022 we refreshed the space and installed a new kitchen/dining and a new Shower room/laundry to be ready for our opening and to welcome the residencies of Chris Soal from Cape Town and Yann Bagot from Montreuil, Paris. They have since been followed by Roland Gunst alias John_k_Cobra, Khwezy Strydom and Misha soon to be joined by Mohammed Arrhioui.
The SAFFCA Residencies are hosted today by August House in Johannesburg in partnership with Meta Foundation, Entabeni Farm in Knysna in partnership with Axon and Hudson Manor and at SAFFCA.EU in Brussels in partnership with ENSAV LA CAMBRE and the ‘Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles’.
We have started a new location in the core of the South-African Bush part of the More Collection and will be able from 2023 to add to our residency locations the two studios with attached en-suite bedrooms being built to that effect at Witklipfontein Eco Lodge in the Vredefort dome, a World Heritage Site.
SAFFCA.EU has furthermore entered in partneship with HISK and with ARBA. Through these, SAFFCA is offering studio space for 10 months to two artists newly graduated from HISK. They are working in our space at the Abbey next to three artists recently graduated from LA CAMBRE. The partnership with ARBA offers the usage of the SAFFCA.EU exhibition space where a selected freshly graduated student of the master CARE can realise an exhibition of young talents at the time, and in the VIP Program of, ART Brussels.
In addition to the Residencies, SAFFCA has participated to Art Fairs in South Africa and Belgium and has had museum exhibitions in South Africa and in Europe ( France and Belgium to this date ) where the wealth and the diversity of African and European independent or emerging contemporary talents is shared through love and passion.
For more information please navigate to the Southern African Foundation For Contemporary Art (SAFFCA) website here